Adventure by Jack London

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Together they passed down the steps and out of the compound to thebeach, where they turned their backs to each other, and eachproceeded toward his destination, their rifles in the hollows oftheir arms, Tudor walking toward the Berande and Sheldon toward theBalesuna.

CHAPTER XXVII--MODERN DUELLING

Barely had Sheldon reached the Balesuna, when he heard the faintreport of a distant rifle and knew it was the signal of Tudor,giving notice that he had reached the Berande, turned about, andwas coming back. Sheldon fired his rifle into the air in answer,and in turn proceeded to advance. He moved as in a dream, absent-mindedly keeping to the open beach. The thing was so preposterousthat he had to struggle to realize it, and he reviewed in his mindthe conversation with Tudor, trying to find some clue to thecommon-sense of what he was doing. He did not want to kill Tudor.Because that man had blundered in his love-making was no reasonthat he, Sheldon, should take his life. Then what was it allabout? True, the fellow had insulted Joan by his subsequentremarks and been knocked down for it, but because he had knockedhim down was no reason that he should now try to kill him.

In this fashion he covered a quarter of the distance between thetwo rivers, when it dawned upon him that Tudor was not on the beachat all. Of course not. He was advancing, according to the termsof the agreement, in the shelter of the cocoanut trees. Sheldonpromptly swerved to the left to seek similar shelter, when thefaint crack of a rifle came to his ears, and almost immediately thebullet, striking the hard sand a hundred feet beyond him,ricochetted and whined onward on a second flight, convincing himthat, preposterous and unreal as it was, it was nevertheless soberfact. It had been intended for him. Yet even then it was hard tobelieve. He glanced over the familiar landscape and at the seadimpling in the light but steady breeze. From the direction ofTulagi he could see the white sails of a schooner laying a tackacross toward Berande. Down the beach a horse was grazing, and heidly wondered where the others were. The smoke rising from thecopra-drying caught his eyes, which roved on over the barracks, thetool-houses, the boat- sheds, and the bungalow, and came to rest onJoan's little grass house in the corner of the compound.

Keeping now to the shelter of the trees, he went forward anotherquarter of a mile. If Tudor had advanced with equal speed theyshould have come together at that point, and Sheldon concluded thatthe other was circling. The difficulty was to locate him. Therows of trees, running at right angles, enabled him to see alongonly one narrow avenue at a time. His enemy might be coming alongthe next avenue, or the next, to right or left. He might be ahundred feet away or half a mile. Sheldon plodded on, and decidedthat the old stereotyped duel was far simpler and easier than thisprotracted hide-and-seek affair. He, too, tried circling, in thehope of cutting the other's circle; but, without catching a glimpseof him, he finally emerged upon a fresh clearing where the youngtrees, waist-high, afforded little shelter and less hiding. Justas he emerged, stepping out a pace, a rifle cracked to his right,and though he did not hear the bullet in passing, the thud of itcame to his ears when it struck a palm-trunk farther on.

He sprang back into the protection of the larger trees. Twice hehad exposed himself and been fired at, while he had failed to catcha single glimpse of his antagonist. A slow anger began to burn inhim. It was deucedly unpleasant, he decided, this being pepperedat; and nonsensical as it really was, it was none the less deadlyserious. There was no avoiding the issue, no firing in the air andgetting over with it as in the old-fashioned duel. This mutualman-hunt must keep up until one got the other. And if oneneglected a chance to get the other, that increased the other'schance to get him. There could be no false sentiment about it.Tudor had been a cunning devil when he proposed this sort of duel,Sheldon concluded, as he began to work along cautiously in thedirection of the last shot.

When he arrived at the spot, Tudor was gone, and only his foot-prints remained, pointing out the course he had taken into thedepths of the plantation. Once, ten minutes later, he caught aglimpse of Tudor, a hundred yards away, crossing the same avenue ashimself but going in the opposite direction. His rifle half-leapedto his shoulder, but the other was gone. More in whim than in hopeof result, grinning to himself as he did so, Sheldon raised hisautomatic pistol and in two seconds sent eight shots scatteringthrough the trees in the direction in which Tudor had disappeared.Wishing he had a shot-gun, Sheldon dropped to the ground behind atree, slipped a fresh clip up the hollow butt of the pistol, threwa cartridge into the chamber, shoved the safety catch into place,and reloaded the empty clip.

It was but a short time after that that Tudor tried the same trickon him, the bullets pattering about him like spiteful rain,thudding into the palm trunks, or glancing off in whiningricochets. The last bullet of all, making a double ricochet fromtwo different trees and losing most of its momentum, struck Sheldona sharp blow on the forehead and dropped at his feet. He waspartly stunned for the moment, but on investigation found nogreater harm than a nasty lump that soon rose to the size of apigeon's egg.

The hunt went on. Once, coming to the edge of the grove near thebungalow, he saw the house-boys and the cook, clustered on the backveranda and peering curiously among the trees, talking and laughingwith one another in their queer falsetto voices. Another time hecame upon a working-gang busy at hoeing weeds. They scarcelynoticed him when he came up, though they knew thoroughly well whatwas going on. It was no affair of theirs that the enigmaticalwhite men should be out trying to kill each other, and whateverinterest in the proceedings might be theirs they were careful toconceal it from Sheldon. He ordered them to continue hoeing weedsin a distant and out-of-the-way corner, and went on with thepursuit of Tudor.

Tiring of the endless circling, Sheldon tried once more to advancedirectly on his foe, but the latter was too crafty, takingadvantage of his boldness to fire a couple of shots at him, andslipping away on some changed and continually changing course. Foran hour they dodged and turned and twisted back and forth andaround, and hunted each other among the orderly palms. They caughtfleeting glimpses of each other and chanced flying shots which werewithout result. On a grassy shelter behind a tree, Sheldon cameupon where Tudor had rested and smoked a cigarette. The pressedgrass showed where he had sat. To one side lay the cigarette stumpand the charred match which had lighted it. In front lay ascattering of bright metallic fragments. Sheldon recognized theirsignificance. Tudor was notching his steel-jacketed bullets, orcutting them blunt, so that they would spread on striking--inshort, he was making them into the vicious dum-dum prohibited inmodern warfare. Sheldon knew now what would happen to him if abullet struck his body. It would leave a tiny hole where itentered, but the hole where it emerged would be the size of asaucer.

He decided to give up the pursuit, and lay down in the grass,protected right and left by the row of palms, with on either handthe long avenue extending. This he could watch. Tudor would haveto come to him or else there would be no termination of the affair.He wiped the sweat from his face and tied the handkerchief aroundhis neck to keep off the stinging gnats that lurked in the grass.Never had he felt so great a disgust for the thing called"adventure." Joan had been bad enough, with her Baden-Powell andlong-barrelled Colt's; but here was this newcomer also looking foradventure, and finding it in no other way than by lugging a peace-loving planter into an absurd and preposterous bush-whacking duel.If ever adventure was well damned, it was by Sheldon, sweating inthe windless grass and fighting gnats, the while he kept closewatch up and down the avenue.

Then Tudor came. Sheldon happened to be looking in his directionat the moment he came into view, peering quickly up and down theavenue before he stepped into the open. Midway he stopped, as ifdebating what course to pursue. He made a splendid mark, facinghis concealed enemy at two hundred yards' distance. Sheldon aimedat the centre of his chest, then deliberately shifted the aim tohis right shoulder, and, with the thought, "That will put him outof business," pulled the trigger. The bullet, driving withmomentum sufficient to perforate a man's body a mile distant,struck Tudor with such force as to pivot him, whirling him halfaround by the shock of its impact and knocking him down.

"'Hope I haven't killed the beggar," Sheldon muttered aloud,springing to his feet and running forward.

A hundred feet away all anxiety on that score was relieved byTudor, who made shift with his left hand, and from his automaticpistol hurled a rain of bullets all around Sheldon. The latterdodged behind a palm trunk, counting the shots, and when the eighthhad been fired he rushed in on the wounded man. He kicked thepistol out of the other's hand, and then sat down on him in orderto keep him down.

"Rather funny, isn't it, these modern duels?" Sheldon grinned downat him as he removed his weight. "Not a bit dignified. If you'dstruggled a moment longer I'd have rubbed your face in the earth.I've a good mind to do it anyway, just to teach you that duellinghas gone out of fashion. Now let us see to your injuries."

"Like a wild Indian. Precisely. You've caught the idea, old man."Sheldon ceased his mocking and stood up. "You lie there quietlyuntil I send back some of the boys to carry you in. You're notseriously hurt, and it's lucky for you I didn't follow yourexample. If you had been struck with one of your own bullets, acarriage and pair would have been none too large to drive throughthe hole it would have made. As it is, you're drilled clean--anice little perforation. All you need is antiseptic washing anddressing, and you'll be around in a month. Now take it easy, andI'll send a stretcher for you."

CHAPTER XXVIII--CAPITULATION

When Sheldon emerged from among the trees he found Joan waiting atthe compound gate, and he could not fail to see that she wasvisibly gladdened at the sight of him.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," was her greeting."What's become of Tudor? That last flutter of the automatic wasn'tnice to listen to. Was it you or Tudor?"

"So you know all about it," he answered coolly. "Well, it wasTudor, but he was doing it left-handed. He's down with a hole inhis shoulder." He looked at her keenly. "Disappointing, isn'tit?" he drawled.

"How do you mean?"

"Why, that I didn't kill him."

"But I didn't want him killed just because he kissed me," shecried.

"Oh, he did kiss you!" Sheldon retorted, in evident surprise. "Ithought you said he hurt your arm."

"One could call it a kiss, though it was only on the end of thenose." She laughed at the recollection. "But I paid him back forthat myself. I boxed his face for him. And he did hurt my arm.It's black and blue. Look at it."

She pulled up the loose sleeve of her blouse, and he saw thebruised imprints of two fingers.

Just then a gang of blacks came out from among the trees carryingthe wounded man on a rough stretcher.

"Romantic, isn't it?" Sheldon sneered, following Joan's startledgaze. "And now I'll have to play surgeon and doctor him up.Funny, this twentieth-century duelling. First you drill a hole ina man, and next you set about plugging the hole up."

They had stepped aside to let the stretcher pass, and Tudor, whohad heard the remark, lifted himself up on the elbow of his soundarm and said with a defiant grin, -

"If you'd got one of mine you'd have had to plug with a dinner-plate."

"Oh, you wretch!" Joan cried. "You've been cutting your bullets."

"It was according to agreement," Tudor answered. "Everything went.We could have used dynamite if we wanted to."

"He's right," Sheldon assured her, as they swung in behind. "Anyweapon was permissible. I lay in the grass where he couldn't seeme, and bushwhacked him in truly noble fashion. That's what comesof having women on the plantation. And now it's antiseptics anddrainage tubes, I suppose. It's a nasty mess, and I'll have toread up on it before I tackle the job."

"I don't see that it's my fault," she began. "I couldn't help itbecause he kissed me. I never dreamed he would attempt it."

"We didn't fight for that reason. But there isn't time to explain.If you'll get dressings and bandages ready I'll look up 'gun-shotwounds' and see what's to be done."

"Is he bleeding seriously?" she asked.

"No; the bullet seems to have missed the important arteries. Butthat would have been a pickle."

"Then there's no need to bother about reading up," Joan said. "AndI'm just dying to hear what it was all about. The Apostle is lyingbecalmed inside the point, and her boats are out to wing. She'llbe at anchor in five minutes, and Doctor Welshmere is sure to be onboard. So all we've got to do is to make Tudor comfortable. We'dbetter put him in your room under the mosquito-netting, and send aboat off to tell Dr. Welshmere to bring his instruments."

An hour afterward, Dr. Welshmere left the patient comfortable andattended to, and went down to the beach to go on board, promisingto come back to dinner. Joan and Sheldon, standing on the veranda,watched him depart.

"I'll never have it in for the missionaries again since seeing themhere in the Solomons," she said, seating herself in a steamer-chair.

She looked at Sheldon and began to laugh.

"That's right," he said. "It's the way I feel, playing the fooland trying to murder a guest."

"But you haven't told me what it was all about."

"You," he answered shortly.

"Me? But you just said it wasn't."

"Oh, it wasn't the kiss." He walked over to the railing and leanedagainst it, facing her. "But it was about you all the same, and Imay as well tell you. You remember, I warned you long ago whatwould happen when you wanted to become a partner in Berande. Well,all the beach is gossiping about it; and Tudor persisted inrepeating the gossip to me. So you see it won't do for you to stayon here under present conditions. It would be better if you wentaway."

"But I don't want to go away," she objected with ruefulcountenance.

"A chaperone, then--"

"No, nor a chaperone."

"But you surely don't expect me to go around shooting everyslanderer in the Solomons that opens his mouth?" he demandedgloomily.

"No, nor that either," she answered with quick impulsiveness."I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll get married and put a stop toit all. There!"

He looked at her in amazement, and would have believed that she wasmaking fun of him had it not been for the warm blood that suddenlysuffused her cheeks.

"Do you mean that?" he asked unsteadily. "Why?"

"To put a stop to all the nasty gossip of the beach. That's apretty good reason, isn't it?"

The temptation was strong enough and sudden enough to make himwaver, but all the disgust came back to him that was his when helay in the grass fighting gnats and cursing adventure, and heanswered, -

"No; it is worse than no reason at all. I don't care to marry youas a matter of expedience--"

"You are the most ridiculous creature!" she broke in, with a flashof her old-time anger. "You talk love and marriage to me, verymuch against my wish, and go mooning around over the plantationweek after week because you can't have me, and look at me when youthink I'm not noticing and when all the time I'm wondering when youhad your last square meal because of the hungry look in your eyes,and make eyes at my revolver-belt hanging on a nail, and fightduels about me, and all the rest--and--and now, when I say I'llmarry you, you do yourself the honour of refusing me."

"You can't make me any more ridiculous than I feel," he answered,rubbing the lump on his forehead reflectively. "And if this is theaccepted romantic programme--a duel over a girl, and the girlrushing into the arms of the winner--why, I shall not make a biggerass of myself by going in for it."

"I thought you'd jump at it," she confessed, with a naivete hecould not but question, for he thought he saw a roguish gleam inher eyes.

"My conception of love must differ from yours then," he said. "Ishould want a woman to marry me for love of me, and not out ofromantic admiration because I was lucky enough to drill a hole in aman's shoulder with smokeless powder. I tell you I am disgustedwith this adventure tom-foolery and rot. I don't like it. Tudoris a sample of the adventure-kind--picking a quarrel with me andbehaving like a monkey, insisting on fighting with me--'to thedeath,' he said. It was like a penny dreadful."

She was biting her lip, and though her eyes were cool and level-looking as ever, the tell-tale angry red was in her cheeks.

"Of course, if you don't want to marry me--"

"But I do," he hastily interposed.

"Oh, you do--"

"But don't you see, little girl, I want you to love me," he hurriedon. "Otherwise, it would be only half a marriage. I don't wantyou to marry me simply because by so doing a stop is put to thebeach gossip, nor do I want you to marry me out of some foolishromantic notion. I shouldn't want you . . . that way."

"Oh, in that case," she said with assumed deliberateness, and hecould have sworn to the roguish gleam, "in that case, since you arewilling to consider my offer, let me make a few remarks. In thefirst place, you needn't sneer at adventure when you are living ityourself; and you were certainly living it when I found you first,down with fever on a lonely plantation with a couple of hundredwild cannibals thirsting for your life. Then I came along--"

"And what with your arriving in a gale," he broke in, "fresh fromthe wreck of the schooner, landing on the beach in a whale-boatfull of picturesque Tahitian sailors, and coming into the bungalowwith a Baden-Powell on your head, sea-boots on your feet, and awhacking big Colt's dangling on your hip--why, I am only too readyto admit that you were the quintessence of adventure."

"Very good," she cried exultantly. "It's mere simple arithmetic--the adding of your adventure and my adventure together. So that'ssettled, and you needn't jeer at adventure any more. Next, I don'tthink there was anything romantic in Tudor's attempting to kiss me,nor anything like adventure in this absurd duel. But I do think,now, that it was romantic for you to fall in love with me. Andfinally, and it is adding romance to romance, I think . . . I thinkI do love you, Dave--oh, Dave!"

The last was a sighing dove-cry as he caught her up in his arms andpressed her to him.

"But I don't love you because you played the fool to-day," shewhispered on his shoulder. "White men shouldn't go around killingeach other."

"Then why do you love me?" he questioned, enthralled after themanner of all lovers in the everlasting query that for ever hasremained unanswered.

"I don't know--just because I do, I guess. And that's all thesatisfaction you gave me when we had that man-talk. But I havebeen loving you for weeks--during all the time you have been sodeliciously and unobtrusively jealous of Tudor."

"Yes, yes, go on," he urged breathlessly, when she paused.

"I wondered when you'd break out, and because you didn't I lovedyou all the more. You were like Dad, and Von. You could holdyourself in check. You didn't make a fool of yourself."

"Not until to-day," he suggested.

"Yes, and I loved you for that, too. It was about time. I beganto think you were never going to bring up the subject again. Andnow that I have offered myself you haven't even accepted."

With both hands on her shoulders he held her at arm's-length fromhim and looked long into her eyes, no longer cool but seeminglypervaded with a golden flush. The lids drooped and yet bravely didnot droop as she returned his gaze. Then he fondly and solemnlydrew her to him.

"And how about that hearth and saddle of your own?" he asked, amoment later.

"I well-nigh won to them. The grass house is my hearth, and theMartha my saddle, and--and look at all the trees I've planted, tosay nothing of the sweet corn. And it's all your fault anyway. Imight never have loved you if you hadn't put the idea into myhead."

"There's the Nongassla coming in around the point with her boatsout," Sheldon remarked irrelevantly. "And the Commissioner is onboard. He's going down to San Cristoval to investigate thatmissionary killing. We're in luck, I must say."

"I don't see where the luck comes in," she said dolefully. "Weought to have this evening all to ourselves just to talk thingsover. I've a thousand questions to ask you."

"And it wouldn't have been a man-talk either," she added.

"But my plan is better than that." He debated with himself amoment. "You see, the Commissioner is the one official in theislands who can give us a license. And--there's the luck of it--Doctor Welshmere is here to perform the ceremony. We'll getmarried this evening."

Joan recoiled from him in panic, tearing herself from his arms andgoing backward several steps. He could see that she was reallyfrightened.

"I . . . I thought . . ." she stammered.

Then, slowly, the change came over her, and the blood flooded intoher face in the same amazing blush he had seen once before thatday. Her cool, level-looking eyes were no longer level-looking norcool, but warmly drooping and just unable to meet his, as she cametoward him and nestled in the circle of his arms, saying softly,almost in a whisper, -